With some exceptions. Kerry, Gore, Feingold. But for the most part the party is too driven by corporate interests, just like the opposition. As I said to someone recently, the Dems are 75% sold out, but the Puggies are 100% sold out & the 25% difference is worth fighting for.

Our first step is gonna be to take back Congress, doing whatever we have to, including holding our noses cozying up to the DINOs. We need the majority for a lot of obvious reasons.

The second step is to take back the White House, assuming we can still make some semblance of our purported democracy actually function.

Then the real battle begins. The progressives have to reclaim the party from the DLC corporate apologists and put in a RADCAL agenda, the likes of which haven't been seen in America since at least 1935. I'm talking massive changes in our energy policy, health care, mass communications ownership, education, world trade agreements,criminal justice system, and on and on. Anything less than a fucking revolution will not be enough to save us. But if we DO bring off the revolution, it contains the seeds of everything. EVERYTHING.

I've been saying this over and over--OUR work as activists BEGINS on November 8, when we insist that the majority power in the House AND Senate (I'm ever the optimist) serve us, the people.

It won't be easy, but it'll be a lot easier with the Dems in power.

Believe me, I know--I'm represented by McCain and Kyl in the Senate and Shadegg in the House and am looking forward to a somewhat warmer reception when I call my reps offices next year, cuz I sure as hell don't get one now.

....but I keep having this nightmare about waking up on Nov 8 to discover that the Diebold gremlins have done their work and the Puggies have miraculously retained control of both houses--maybe even gained a couple of seats--and the nattering network ninnies are all going on about how the exit polls were wrong (or cancelled or readjusted) and everybody seems to have suddenly decided that the Puggies provided the only security against terror and it was just too scary to change horses in the middle of the voyage up shit creek, yada yada.

Just keep plugging away with them TRUTH ARROWS and the Facade of the GOP will be destroyed/decimated.

The French Revolution took about 10 years to complete...with no Internet. We can do it much quicker.

The GOPers have done Society a big Favor: They have exposed their selfishness and greed, never mind the Domination Factor of POWER BUILDING AKA EMPIRE BUILDING...all of which is counter to Middle America. The GOP have LIED to their own Base and now reap its consequences in the form of LOWER POLL NUMBERS.

JUST WHAT DID THEY EXPECT? Higher Numbers from Lying? Worked only a few months ago but as the LIES PILE UP...so does the SMELL

Hence the LOWER POLL NUMBERS....its a sure sign of strong coffee and a REJECTION of the GOP Prevaricating all over the Place...

What you are talking about is -- in the larger scheme of things -- a MODERATE CORRECTIVE AGENDA based on progressive populism. It's as American as Apple Pie.

We have been on a RADICAL course for the last 30 years -- at least. A radical right-wing course that has taken us so far from moderation, common sense and common decency thgat it has been extreme to the max.

Screw the middle and working class by slashing their wages, removing their benefits and shipping their jobs out of the country. Abandon the lower class so they either freeze in the cold or turn to crime to survive. Allow a tiny handful of corporate monoliths to absorb entire industries into monopolies or duopolies. Use the government to force the views of a narrow set of religious bigots and Calvinists on everyone else. Turn the US into an aggressive empire that uses its force to conqueor and colonize the rest of the world...etc. etc. etc.

Now THAT's Radical.

The reforms you are talkling about may seem radical within this environment. But in reality, it is simply restoring more of what most Americans actually believe in, when you strip away the facade of partisan politics and media spin.

We're not the radicals. The other side -- and their enablers -- are the real radicals.

the word "radical" really refers to central, basic change, change going to the root. I would argue that America as for most of its history been a nation of mostly pretty poor people in economic enslavement to a small, rich ruling class. Think of the indentured servants, slaves, sharecroppers, industrial sweatshop workers, un-unionized miners and rail workers, the Irish and Chinese laborers who built the railroads, etc. Only to a limited degree, and only for a relatively short period of time (maybe 1930 to 1980; pick your own dates) was there any rollback of the hegemony of the rich. The middle class got its start in and after WWII (GI Bill, veterans home loans, etc.) & by the time of Reagan it was all under massive assault again.

But it's possible to look at it through a different prism. Let's call it Evolution.

In other words, America started out with a fundamental disconnect between our professed ideals and the systemic inequality and exploitation that was part of the reality.

So there have been two basic and conflicting threads running throughout our history.One might be called the "progressive" instinct towards our ideals greater equality and opportunity versus the "conservative" instinct towards oligarchy and concentration of wealth and power and exploitation of the majority.

These two drives have struggled throughout our history on many levels. It was often conflict, but the overall pattern was an evolution towards our professed ideals....It wasn't a straight line. It was sometimes two steps forward and one step back -- or one step forward and two steps back....For example, although it wasn't as defined as it later became, there was a movement of the working classes towards an enlarging middle class.

What happened in the late 19th and early 20th Century was that after the excesses of the Gilded Age, the evolution of progressive/liberal ideals accelerated and expanded. Ideas that would have been rejected as "radical socialism" in previous eras became mainstream and accepted as normal. (Such as Social Security, Minimum Wage, Workers Rights, the Right to Vote for Blacks and Women, etc.)

So many Progressive values became Mainstream Values, and many reforms that were considered unthinkable radical became accepted by peopel of many political persuasions.

Alas, since the 1970's we've been in the Three-Steps Back Mode. The Corporate, Right-Wing Oligarchs have regrouped and re-emerged to shape the course of this evolution and reverse it. And liberalism also had its own problems.

So, we have been slipping backwards. And, as a result, Mainstream Progressive Values and Policies have been portrayed as "out of step" with modern times.

But I would contend that the bedrock of Progressive Values that surged in the mid-20th century still exist as Mainstream Values. What is needed is to remind Americans of their actual beliefs -- and their actual self-interest, and translate that into political support.

That can enable the US both to regain lost ground, and continue along the evolutionary path towards more fundamental reformss on many levels.

The Republican Revolution is self-imploding. American voters - not especially well known for their political acumen - are slowly awakening from their long slumber. It turns out you really CAN'T fool ALL the people all the time.

In order for the current conservative misfortune to transform into an historical realignment we must plot a careful course. There has not been a left in American politics the past 30 years. Americans have been conditioned too long to oppose anything that sounds too "liberal."

We have to start by re-taking power and gradually implementing progressive policies and as those policies meet with success we can help redefine liberalism to make it more palatable. Within a few years we can succeed in shifting the political center to the left and permanently destroy the current conservative majority.

Reagan Democrats left the party because in their experience liberal rule seemed to coincide with a malaise in American society and intl power. Those memories are now fading and fresh in peoples' minds are the disasters of bushism and neocon disaster. Democrats need to regain the peoples' trust before we can lead a real transformation that's been long overdue.

Groundhogs Day. The New Deal sprang from the Depression, but the post-Depression generation forgot the lessons & installed Reagan. Things finally degenerated to the point of our ending up with Bush. Now we'll maybe have a revolution of sorts and not too long after that the slow drift toward Republofascism will start again. Why can't we learn? Why can't we shift our core assumptions?

I think that is the way democracy is supposed to work: periodic cycles that balance the advancement of private interest with cycles of public interest. What is perplexing is why are Americans so slow to react and why do we veer so much farther to the right than other advanced democracies? My guesses:

- Americans got democracy before it was earned through a worker's movement

- American news media are run by PR flacks, not journalists and intellectuals

Postwar prosperity made us fat and lazy. The prosperity has worn off but now we are lulled by the new opiate of the masses: entertainment. Now the consequences of our right wing rule are infringing on our entertainment-induced stupor and we are slowly realizing that the path we are on is leading to destruction.

...operates on a one party system. We have the Really Rotten Corporate Party, with a right, and a left wing. For all the sniping that Repubs and Dems do at one another in public, at the end of the day they are ALL in bed with each other.

And, by the way, I sorta like Pelosi. She's done a more-than-adequate job in the House.

But, bottom line, we can't have majority leaders like Daschle (and, to some extent Reid) if we want to push our agenda and pass our legislation. We need someone, first of all, who is a progressive from a safely Democratic region; someone who will not need to worry about being reelected. Second, we need someone with the type of personality and record that most legislators can and will trust. This person will need to work across the aisle when warranted, but also be able to foster party unity when crucial votes are necessary. This person has to mean what he/she says and say what he/she means.

Do we even have anyone like that in the current crop of Democrats? I don't know. But I think if we can find someone who will lead, the rest of the party (and a majority of the nation) will follow.

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